


A Much Needed Reminder

by Marasa



Category: Survivor (US TV) RPF
Genre: Cute, Fluff, M/M, Napping, Protectiveness, i just think they’re neat, shell collecting, soft, winners at war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:20:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23226205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marasa/pseuds/Marasa
Summary: New season. Back again.Or Rob and Ethan vibe during the early days of Sele.
Relationships: Rob Mariano & Ethan Zohn
Comments: 1
Kudos: 25





	A Much Needed Reminder

**Author's Note:**

> I’m loving Rob and Ethan’s relationship this season and I just needed some more interaction between them, so that’s how this came about. Enjoy!

New season. Back again. 

This time, however, Rob was surrounded by fellow winners of this game that had become his life. So many of them were familiar faces that it ended up being somewhat of a reunion on this tiny island of sand in the middle of the ocean.

The buffs were distributed and that soft shade of Sele’s blue caught his eye in the crowd of twenty like he was an animal primally recognizing its own. Natalie, Jeremy, Adam, Denise, Ben, Michelle— he didn’t know these ones all too well. New kids, really. Parvati was a welcome face and in fact, most likely Rob’s saving grace. Danni too was somewhat familiar, and though he had never met her before this, he had a good feeling about her.

And then there was Ethan.

They had played together once. It had been such a long time ago, and Rob was surprised to find that he remembered little if anything about Ethan despite their time in Panama together. This worried him somewhat, but he was sure he could trust him as long as he was Old School. 

Day turned to night once and then again, but after that it got muddy. Time was slipping away now like it often did on the island and in those early days of more leisure than worry, Rob found that Ethan was actually the best company on the island.

It was like they did in fact know each other or something already the way they talked to each other and joked. Rob had admittedly already snapped once or twice at Adam and Ben for moving his canteen, accidentally or not, but it was becoming apparent that Ethan could get away with a lot more. He had taken Rob’s entire bag by accident for half a day and Rob surprisingly hadn’t given him hell. He couldn’t explain where his patience for Ethan came from; that’s just how it was. 

His friendly demeanor was probably a contributing factor. Ethan’s easy-going, cheery attitude almost made it feel like a crime to get on him over bullshit that didn’t matter. Have someone make a comment about Rob’s challenge performance and he was on their ass but Ethan could— and had— waltzed right up to him, pointed a finger at his face and said, “You sucked today,” with nothing but a smile as an answer from Rob.

Ethan must have been made of magic or something because this law of Rob’s nature was being rewritten just for him.

A lot impressed Rob about Ethan. Everyone else in Sele existed under the heavy blanket of Survivor’s strategic game, but Ethan flew high above it, light and unaffected. Of course he understood he was in the game, so Rob didn’t have to worry about that, but Ethan understood there was more to the game than just the hard gameplay. 

“If it was,” he had told Rob once when they were collecting firewood, “they would shoot the show on a studio lot in California. It wouldn’t matter where it was shot if all that mattered was strategy.”

According to Ethan, there were trails to be hiked and tropical birds to spot high up in the trees and hermit crabs hiding amongst the rocks on the shore that had to be named and given humorous backstories. 

Ethan had a thing for collecting bits of nature. Rob assumed he might have done so with the intention of taking it back home after the game ended, but sometimes it felt like he did for the sheer joy of it.

“Hey, ladies,” Ethan had said yesterday afternoon as he walked from out of the jungle and to the fire where the Sele women were talking. “I have something for you all.”

Ethan extended a handful of white and yellow flowers Rob had seen growing on a bush by the water well.

“You’re so sweet, Ethan. Thank you,” Denise said as she took the one held out to her and tucked it behind her right ear.

Rob had been watching nearby. A vague smile held fast on his face but it had quickly been waning as he came to a harsh realization. His first reaction when Ethan made his way over to where the men had been sitting around was to shoot him a certain look or drag him off to warn him that being so nice would only paint him as a target. The game had changed. No one wanted to be sitting next to the nice guy come final three; that much was obvious.

But Rob couldn’t make his mouth move to say those words when Ethan approached him, one last flower in his hand and one already behind his own ear. Rob looked over his shoulder and saw Adam putting his on with a comically focused expression on his face while Jeremy and Ben laughed with each other over the sight of the flower behind the other’s ear. 

“That one’s for me?” Rob murmured, nodding to the last flower held between Ethan’s fingers. 

“Yeah,” Ethan said with the same tone of,  _ ‘Of course.’ _

Rob had taken the flower stem between his calloused fingers and rolled it slowly back and forth. The canary-yellow petals were thin as butterfly wings and just as striking. It would be a shame to let it fall to the ground or to hand it back to the man who had picked it, and surprisingly Rob didn’t want to. It was his; Ethan had said so. So Rob took off his hat and tucked the flower behind his right ear with incredible gentleness as if he feared that he would squash its beauty. 

Rob might have played many times before but Ethan reminded him of the quieter parts of the game. Rob felt a little stupid then— no,  _ humbled _ — as he followed Ethan around their island’s long stretch of beach. The day had been slow, feeling more like thirty-two hours than twenty four and the later hours of the blistering afternoon had brought about Ethan’s desire to go shell collecting. The water lapped at their feet as they walked together, Rob following close behind Ethan as Ethan led him. 

After what felt like his obligation to be a wise guy cracking jokes about his alliance member’s little “scavenguh hunt,” Rob went comfortably quiet and held out his hand for any other shell Ethan would like to put in it.

“That’s a cool one,” Ethan said, holding up an all black shell with vertical white lines on it. He placed it in Rob’s awaiting palm along with the others. 

Rob hummed. “I like this one.”

“Which one?” Ethan asked with such a genuine interest that it made Rob wordless for a moment. 

Rob pointed to a soft pink shell resting on the bridge of his palm.

“Yeah, that is a nice one. You can have it,” Ethan said. “You can give it to Amber. I’m sure she’d love it.”

“At the merge, right?”

They shared a smile.

“Of course at the merge,” Ethan said. “Where else would you see her before that?”

Some nights were better than others. Considering they had no real shelter, their sleeping arrangement was rather spread out. Rob had initially thought this would be a blessing; sleeping in shelters was usually so uncomfortably cramped. But now he was nostalgic for it and found it hard to fall asleep without being squished between sharp shoulders and being jabbed with elbows and knees. 

Rob was the last to fall asleep and the second to wake the next morning. Ethan had been the first, already walking around and stoking the fire as he got breakfast going. 

Rob squinted groggily up at him. His back ached from sleeping on the ground— when had they made the unanimous decision to say fuck it and not build a shelter?— and his sleep had been light and unsatisfactory.

But Ethan was smiling brightly, refreshed and picturesque against the sky slowly turning from sunrise-red to placid blue. 

“Good morning,” Ethan greeted.

“Good morning…”

Everyone was still sleeping around them, their buffs guarding their noses and mouths as they curled up on their sides. Rob sat up and wiped his palms down his face. 

“I’m exhausted, man.” He could barely get the words out as he yawned around them loudly, and that had the others stirring awake.

“Well we need you to get your rest, dude. We have obstacle courses to run and puzzles to lose.”

The weak look Rob gave Ethan was something more like a tired pout. Ethan smiled and patted Rob’s shoulder twice and his stubbly cheek once as he passed to go get some more firewood. 

They went out for a swim together once afternoon hit. Times like this were surprisingly common this season, at least so far. Maybe they were all just happy to be back in Fiji, all of them winners at some point and not hungry with need for the paycheck like they had once been. They acted like they were on vacation this time around and would oftentimes act twenty years younger as they splashed at each other or pulled themselves up another’s shoulders in a bout of friendly roughhousing. 

They must have been out in the ocean for an hour when Rob went to turn to Ethan and point out a cloud shaped like a sea turtle. They had been playing an ongoing game of finding remarkable shapes in the clouds, and it could have been stupid and juvenile but again, it just wasn’t. It was the weirdest thing but Rob was enjoying the downtime a lot more this time around. 

But Ethan wasn’t there when Rob turned to point it out. Rob turned the other way, looked behind him. 

Nothing. 

He scanned the blue landscape of rolling ocean waves and counted his tribe’s heads as if he were responsible for them. 

_ One. Two. Three, four, five... _

“Where’s Ethan?” Rob stood up from the water and began looking around in a way that could be described as ‘wildly’ upon counting only eight heads. When no one cared enough to answer, Rob’s words became hurried and loud. “Parv. Parvati. Ethan—“

“He went back onshore,” Parvati assured as she waded serenely. Michelle and Adam floated by on their backs close to her.

“When? I didn’t see ‘im go back.”

“I don’t know. A while ago?”

Rob peered out across the horizon in the direction of camp but failed to see any sight of him. “You sure he went back?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

Rob swam back to shore and after looking at the camp, eventually found Ethan napping halfway under a bush on the edge of where the beach met the jungle. 

He cast a shadow as he neared Ethan, which covered his placid face previously painted with dappled spots of sunlight fallen through the bush’s leaves. Ethan must have gauged the difference in brightness because then he was shifting and peeking up at Rob with a deep inhale.

“Hmm?”

“Nothin’,” Rob said, quietly. “Just lookin’ for ya, brother. You weren’t out there. Didn’t know if the sharks had gotten ya.”

Ethan’s eyes slid closed again but he smiled with all his teeth showing. “I’m good. Just tired.”

“All right. Well we’ll be out there, all right? If you need somethin’—“

“Thanks, Rob.”

Rob nodded even though Ethan couldn’t see him and waited a few more seconds, perhaps subconsciously waiting for him to fall asleep once again before leaving him. 

They all had an early dinner together an hour later and napped soon after around the crackling fire. Ethan lay on Rob’s right side, not as tired as the others considering his earlier sleep. Ethan was murmuring quietly to Rob and though Rob was exhausted, he went so far as to make little grunts of affirmation that he was indeed listening even though he was beginning to nod off. 

Rob could listen to him talk for hours, though Ethan never would talk for hours. He was a good talker, someone Rob could discuss anything with and who listened well, and Ethan had this sort of cadence that was refreshing but familiar, if that made sense? Rob wasn’t even sure; his half-asleep mind was a hell of a thing. 

Whatever it was, Rob knew this: Ethan was quickly becoming a good friend. 

When Ethan said something nearly inaudible but pertaining to the game, Rob perked up as if on instinct and turned to look at him. Ethan was on his side turned toward him, his hands tucked under his cheek. 

_ “Us, right?”  _ he mouthed. 

Rob lifted his eyebrows in question. 

_ “We’re goin’ to the end?”  _

That had always been the plan since the first day they had stepped onto the Sele beach. Ethan knew that, but Rob got it; sometimes it was just better to hear it. 

_ “Me. You. Parv,”  _ Rob mouthed.  _ “Final three.” _

_ “Yeah?” _

_ “Yeah.” _

Ethan cheered silently, too excited to contain himself. He reached out to squeeze Rob’s forearm. Rob smiled and finally nodded off to sleep.

Rob was one of the first to wake just as the sun was beginning to set. Ethan was already up or maybe he hadn’t slept.

He was sitting up with his knees brought up to his chest. Ethan would scratch at a scab on his knee and then look out at the ocean, then do it all over again. 

Rob just stared up at the back of his head without saying a word. He was still waking, wasn’t sure if he wanted to get up just yet or pass out again. When Ethan finally turned and saw Rob was awake, he smiled again.

So Rob got up. 

They let the tribe be and removed themselves quietly where they moved to sit on the beach. They sat closer than usual together as the warmth of the day quickly was quickly replaced by the cold, and Rob had lent his sweatshirt to Danni to sleep in anyway and was faring this brisk wind with bare arms. 

Ethan liked sunsets and sunrises the most out of all of them. He was frequently the first one up in the morning and the last to join the tribe in the evening because he was determined to watch the sun as it appeared or disappeared in the horizon. 

And as Rob sat out here with him for the first time, he suddenly got it. This was beautiful. The sight was like a watercolor painting across the sky, somehow bright without being hard to look at. If anything, the deep oranges and darkening purples eased his tired eyes.

Another season, but this felt new. 

When Ethan and Rob had first played together, they had been younger then, ignorant and on top of the world. 

They were different now. Older. Mellower. 

Happier.

And Rob liked this Ethan, the one who smiled bright as the sun and who took playful jabs at him and who could cough up his small serving of rice seemingly whenever he wanted to eat again. 

This game could often feel like a too-long trek but Rob was counting on getting strength from those he had chosen to make the trek with him. The approaching darkness of the horizon struck him a certain way in the chest but the last remnants of the sun offered a weird comfort that made him overly sensitive. This bittersweet feeling welled up inside him and Rob was blinking a little too hard as he spoke. 

“You can’t go.”

Ethan turned to look at him.

“If you go,” Rob murmured as he stared at the setting sun, “I don’t know what I’m gonna do. It’s the three of us. Parvati, but It’s me and you, too. You can’t go.” Rob turned to him. “Promise you’ll stick around?”

Ethan looked at him for a long moment and Rob couldn’t know what Ethan saw in his expression, but the answering warmth of his smile quelled any beginnings of anxiety Rob could feel beginning in his body. 

“That’s the plan,” Ethan said.

Their shoulders were touching as they stared off into the sky with the soundtrack of the ocean waves and the refreshing wind smelling of salt to accompany them.

It was soon to be yet another night in a long line of many, but this time it was somehow different. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr: @marasamoon


End file.
